The thing a drama school can't give you is instinct. It can sharpen instinct but that can't be taught, and you have to have intuition. It's an essential ingredient.
Interpretation
Instinct and intuition are innate qualities essential for a successful acting career, which cannot be fully taught in a drama school.
In this quote, Gary Oldman emphasizes the importance of instinct and intuition in the art of acting. While drama schools can provide valuable training and techniques to enhance an actor's skills, the core essence of an actor's performance comes from their innate understanding and emotional instinct, which cannot be imparted through formal education alone. This highlights the unique blend of talent and training that is crucial for success in the performing arts.
In practice
During a lesson on acting techniques, a teacher might cite this quote to illustrate the importance of intuition in performance.
I drank for about 25 years getting over the loss of my father and I took the anger out on myself. I did a good job at beating myself up at sometimes. I don't drink anymore but my alcoholic head occasionally says different. 'Nil By Mouth' was a love letter to my father because I needed to resolve some issues in order to be able to forgive him.
There's no handbook for parenting. So you walk a very fine line as a parent because you are civilizing these raw things. They will tip the coffee over and finger-paint on the table. At some point, you have to say, 'We're gonna have to clean that up because you don't paint with coffee on a table.'
I wanted to play Dracula because I wanted to say: 'I've crossed oceans of time to find you.' It was worth playing the role just to say that line.
Change is vital to any actor. If you keep playing lead after lead, you're really gonna dry up. Because all those vehicles wean you away from the truths of human behaviour.
Getting sober was one of the three pivotal events in my life, along with becoming an actor and having a child. Of the three, finding my sobriety was the hardest thing.
In all the creative work that I have done, what has come first is a problem, a puzzle involving discomfort.
Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.
Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella." (spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa)
Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings.
But now it's just another show, you leave em laughing when you go. And if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.
For Christ plays in ten thousand places,/ Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his/ To the Father through the features of menβs faces.
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